


A Mirror of Moths

by Vulgarweed



Category: Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms
Genre: Interspecies, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-16
Updated: 2010-05-16
Packaged: 2017-10-09 12:24:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vulgarweed/pseuds/Vulgarweed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aragorn and Frodo thought their interludes to be entirely private. But the whole future of Middle-earth was at stake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Mirror of Moths

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eyebrowofdoom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyebrowofdoom/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Mill in the Mirror](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/809) by eyebrowofdoom. 



There are things that I can know, and things that I cannot know. And there are even things that I would have believed it not my place to know, and yet knowledge comes unbidden.

 

There are many questions I could have asked of the Ringbearer, but even as they formed within my mind, they trailed away like clouds across the moon. The one that burned upon my lips and yet did not go to him was, “what is it that you need, Frodo? I ask not what will feed you nor who will protect you on your journey. I ask what will keep your shining spirit alive beneath the onslaught it faces, against the power of the curse you wear.”

 

I feared that the answer was nothing. One life against all of Middle-earth is not a price to dear to pay, and yet I knew that Frodo was facing nothing so simple or pure as a death in battle. I am a very old Elf-woman, deemed wise among my people, and I have fought many battles and faced many terrors. But none have made me so weary, so uncertain of my very self as my glimpses of the Eye and the way it devours from within.

 

The test of my will was, perhaps, simpler than it appeared. I would lay down my life if called to help the Ringbearer with his task. But I would not take his task from him; I would not carry that loathsome and mighty thing in his place.

 

Well I know what takes place in my own fair city in the trees, within the borders of my realm, and little occurs without my blessing. What can sustain him, I give to him. What others can give that I cannot, I thank them.

 

I would not have expected it to take this form, but Elessar is also _estel_, hope. My granddaughter will not begrudge this gift, this embrace, this warriors’ comfort on the edge of the knife.

 

 ***

 

Frodo clings to Aragorn as the tall Man walks through the lamplit night away from the talans of the city towards the gleaming wood, where the only lights are from stars and the shimmer of the moon on the golden mallorn leaves. Soon, he will have to let go, perhaps forever, and so he compensates by clinging all the harder. Aragorn is warm, freshly bathed, his hair smelling of pipeweed and washing-herbs, green and brown and strong.

 

Strider, Frodo thinks with a smile. He savours the stretch and lift of Aragorn’s long legs, the rhythm of his smooth, sure-footed gait. He wishes Aragorn could carry him all the way to Mordor. He wishes Aragorn would turn and run in another direction entirely, away, far away, anywhere but East, anywhere but where duty and destiny point the way.

 

He feels a tingle under the collar of his shirt. The blasted thing that has brought him to this place. So hateful, and so precious.

After all, it will bring him death, he is sure. But it has also brought him to Aragorn, and he isn’t entirely sure that is a terrible bargain.

 

“Frodo,” Aragorn says, again and again, in protest and possessiveness, as they lie on the grass. Frodo will not be denied; he plucks him his failing courage and puts it all into his hands and his tongue as he touches and tastes.  Aragorn is terrified of hurting him, but the stubborn little Halfling has been hurt badly before and will be again, and for considerably less sweetness. He takes Aragorn’s huge hand, that covers half his chest, and lays it over his heart, pulsing fiercely through the shining, radiant mithril, and beneath it, the wound of the cave-troll’s thrust, as if to say _if this did not hurt me, you will not._

 

This is the knowledge that pulses beneath their moans and kisses, that hangs unspoken on dancing, penetrating tongues as Aragorn undresses Frodo slowly, touching everything of him except, of course, the Ring. Aragorn kisses the scar of the Witch-king’s blade, forever beyond his power to heal completely, white and cold, and Frodo shudders and moans beneath him. The warm wet mouth is so _alive_.

 

It doesn’t take Aragorn long to explore his way down Frodo and back up again as the hobbit writhes beneath him, begging for more – there, and there, please, and oh yes _here_, and use your teeth, and finish undressing me please, and now _you_.

 

_Oh, let me see the size of that thing. Let me touch it. Pet it. Learn its name – it’s Aragorn’s member, it probably has at least three names._

Aragorn stares down, breathless, disbelieving, as Frodo tells him what he wants. “Elbereth. Do you mean…?”

 

Frodo does mean, most certainly, and most emphatically. He means he wants penetration, entanglement, the sweetest impalement, the oiled sword and the velvet scabbard, and Aragorn’s cock swells at the very thought, at least part in fear of causing pain, again, that oath to protect coming to seem a very terrible oversimplification. Frodo _wants_ the stretch, the challenge, perhaps even the pain. He will have to accommodate many much more terrible things.

 

Aragorn can give him this. He _must_. His desire is not leading him astray, it is leading him straight to his goal. With oiled fingers and hungry mouth he sets to work between Frodo’s thighs, resolving not to enter him until the hobbit’s cries are full of begging and ecstasy. It will not be an easy ride, but a worthy one. He works, slowly, groaning at the tight heat around his fingers, at the salty, clean-skin taste of Frodo’s cock which does not seem so small as all that in his mouth.

 

There is nothing to say but “oh,” when it finally is time and he pushes into the brave, trembling, hungry body beneath him, and Frodo’s face falls open with concentration, with sensation, with oddity and slight pain and sheer fascination of this feeling unlike any he has ever felt before. Aragorn feels everything; his tension and relaxation, the stuttering, jerking movements of his hips, his sweat, his tested courage. And he feels Frodo _open_, fit to him perfectly, as the hobbit invites him to _move_.

 

Frodo loves this. He _loves_ Aragorn’s bigness, his human roughness, the hairs of his body that chafe Frodo’s skin, the way he drives Frodo’s legs almost but not quite too far apart as he begins to let himself move wildly, fiercely, without restraint, without fear. There is the sound of slapping skin, of hard breathing and throaty gasping, the whisper of hands in hair and skin sliding on grass.

 

Frodo bites and scratches. They _do_ hurt each other, a little, and that is part of it, part of this overwhelming need and this very rough comfort. Frodo clenches inside, his body convulsing in joy and relief, and Aragorn is right with him, spending impossibly deep inside Frodo’s tight shuddering heat.

 

There is too much to say after this, so they say nothing, as blood and sinew stretch and settle and the moon continues his journey across the still-unsullied sky through the mighty arches of trees.

 

It is not cold here, but Frodo shivers, and Aragorn draws his cloak over them both, and holds him close, and they take a deep breath before the plunge. Frodo feels Aragorn’s big arms encircling him, cheek pressed to the fuzzy wall of Aragorn’s chest, and for just a few moments, perhaps, he forgets to be aware of the presence of the circle of gold that hangs down on his back, against the moss.

 

If this land could absorb it, it would. If the Lady could have taken it, she would have done. What is is precisely what must be, and that also includes Frodo, head tucked under Aragorn’s chin and hand lightly resting on the Man’s hip.

 

This is in the Mirror too.

 

 

 


End file.
